Research shows that sexual attractions emerge around the time of puberty. If you think back to puberty, do you remember making a choice of who you would be attracted to? In fact, research shows that it doesn't matter what your sexual orientation is, it tends to emerge around the time of puberty. All indications are that people don't choose their sexual orientation.

If we taught this earlier, then fewer kids would grow up like the men in this article.

Oh yeah, and this study confirms the classic street wisdom that homophobic males secretly feel attracted to men, whether they know it or not. Hate of any kind is a sad thing, but hatred of one's own sexual desire is deeply saddening - and yes, I'm talking to you Ted.

A classic study reveals that young homophobic men have secret gay urges

By Jesse Bering

Jesse Bering

I wish I could say that I decided to come out of the closet in my early twenties for more admirable reasons—such as for love or the principle of the thing. But the truth is that passing for a straight person had become more of a hassle than I figured it was worth. Since the third grade, I’d spent too many valuable cognitive resources concocting deceptive schemes to cover up the fact that I was gay.

In fact, my earliest conscious tactic to hide my homosexuality involved being outlandishly homophobic. When I was eight years old, I figured that if I used the word “fag” a lot and on every possible occasion expressed my repugnance for gay people, others would obviously think I was straight. But, although it sounded good in theory, I wasn’t very hostile by temperament and I had trouble channeling my fictitious outrage into convincing practice.

I may have failed as a homophobe, but unfortunately, many people succeed. And it turns out we may have something in common—many young, homophobic males may secretly harbor homosexual desires (whether they are consciously trying to deceive the world about them as I was or not even aware they exist). One of the most important lines of work in this area dates back to a 1996 article published in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology. In this empirical paper, researchers Henry Adams, Lester Wright, Jr., and Bethany Lohr from the University of Georgia report evidence that homophobic young males may secretly have gay urges.

In this study, 64 self-reported straight males with a mean age of 20.3 years were divided into two groups (“non-homophobic men” and “homophobic men”) on the basis of their scores on a questionnaire measure of aversion to gay males. Here, homophobia was operationally defined as the degree of “dread” experienced when placed in close quarters with a homosexual—basically, how comfortable or uncomfortable the person was in interacting with gay people. (There is debate in the clinical literature about the semantics of this term, with some scholars introducing other constructs such as “homonegativism” to underscore the more cognitive nature of some people’s antigay stance.)

Each participant then agreed to attach a penile plethysmograph to his, well, “lesser self.” According to the authors, this plethysmograph device is “a mercury-in-rubber circumferential strain gauge used to measure erectile responses to sexual stimuli. When attached, changes in the circumference of the penis cause changes in the electrical resistance of the mercury column.” Previous research with this apparatus (the plethsymograph, not the penis—well, actually both) confirmed that significant changes in circumference occur only during sexual stimulation and sleep.

Next, the participants were placed in a private chamber and presented with three 4-minute segments of graphic pornography. The three video snippets represented straight porn (scenes of fellatio and vaginal intercourse), lesbian porn (scenes of cunnilingus or tribadism), and gay male porn (scenes of fellatio and anal intercourse). Following each randomly ordered video presentation, the participant rated how sexually aroused he felt and also his degree of penile erection. Can you guess the results?

Both groups—non-homophobic and homophobic men—showed significant engorgement to the straight and lesbian porn and their subjective ratings of arousal matched their penile plethsymograph measure for these two types of video. However, as predicted, only the homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference in response to the gay male porn: specifically, 26 percent of these homophobic men showed “moderate tumescence” (6-12 mm) to this video and 54 percent showed “definite tumescence” (more than 12 mm). (In contrast, for the non-homophobic men, these percentages were 10 and 24, respectively.) Furthermore, the homophobic men significantly underestimated their degree of sexual arousal to the gay male porn.

From these data, the researchers concluded that, “individuals who score high in the homophobic range and admit negative affect toward homosexuality demonstrate significant sexual arousal to male homosexual erotic stimuli.” Of course, it isn’t clear whether these people are unconsciously self-deceiving or consciously trying to conceal from others their secret attraction to members of the same sex. The Freudian concept of reaction formation—in which people’s repressed desires are manifested by their fervent emotional reactions and hostile behaviors towards the very thing they desire—could explain the former. (From Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”) The latter implies an act of deliberate social deception, such as my 8-year-old self's misguided scheming. It could of course be a bit of both, or work differently for different people. Who is to say whether Ted Haggard—the very incarnation of this phenomenon—was self-deceiving or whether he knew he had full-blown homosexual urges all along?

Adams and his colleagues’ interpretation of these plethsymograph findings have not gone unchallenged. For example, in an article published in a 2006 issue of the Journal of Research in Personality, Gettysburg College researcher Brian Meier and his colleagues argue that Adams’s findings can be better interpreted as the homophobic group’s “defensive loathing” of gay males rather than a secret attraction. Drawing an analogy to other phobias, Meier and his coauthors state that, “We believe it is inaccurate to argue that spider phobics secretly desire spiders or that claustrophobics secretly like to be crammed into dark and tight spaces.” These investigators reason that Adams’s homophobic sample experienced erections in response to the gay male porn due not to sexual arousal, but due to their anxiety over the images, which in turn provoked the physiological response of penile engorgement.

However, I think this “defensive loathing” reinterpretation by Meiers is off course. Although it is true that ambient anxiety has been shown to increase the degree of sexual arousal in response to stimuli that is already sexually arousing, I could find no evidence that anxiety alone can give a man an erection. At least I hope this is the case. I have anxiety over public speaking. If, on top of everything else, I have to worry about getting an erection during my talk tomorrow, perhaps I ought to just cancel my appearance. Likewise, by these investigators’ logic, male arachnophobes should get a mild tickle down there whenever they spy a spider scurrying across their desk. I suppose that’s possible, but it seems rather far-fetched to me.

If we take Adams’s findings that homophobic men get erections from watching gay porn as reasonable evidence of their sexual arousal, then, these findings are enormously important. For example, they may help us to understand some of the psychological causes of gay-bashing. Some of the most startling data I’ve come across lately involve a 1998 survey of 500 straight males in the San Francisco, California area. Half of these men said they had acted aggressively in some way against homosexuals (and these were just the ones who admitted to such acts). And a third of those who hadn’t struck out in this manner against gay people said that they would assault or harass a “homosexual who made a pass at them.” If you missed the irony, this was in San Francisco—arguably one of the most “gay-friendly” places in the world!

Friday, January 30, 2009

Scary statistic. It's bound to get worse with the economy tanking the way it is.

As a man who has had a drinking problem in the past, I know how destructive it can be in a person's life. I spent more than enough years living in a bottle. It's a very confining space. In every way imaginable.

I'm sure the genetic thing is real for some people, but not as many as they suggest. Most men who drink too much do so to evade their feelings. It's escapism with an addictive drug. Strange thing is that it works the first couple of times, but then not so much. So you end up "crying in your beer," as the old cliche goes.

When we get to a point where we can deal with our feelings and sit with pain, or fear, or joy, without flinching, the need to escape goes away. If we have already become physically addicted by that point (you'll know by the withdrawal symptoms), then a lifetime of vigilance will be necessary. Some of us, and I am one of the lucky ones, will be able to have a beer or two on a Friday night with no repercussions.

One in 5 men at risk of drinking problem

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - At least one in five men in developed countries are at risk of abusing or becoming dependent on alcohol during their lifetimes, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The risk is about half that for women, who have an 8 to 10 percent chance of becoming dependent on alcohol.

And despite the popular belief that nothing works, there is help in the form of several effective treatments, they said.

"This is a serious problem," Dr. Marc Schuckit of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California said in a telephone interview.

He said men have roughly a 15 percent lifetime risk for alcohol abuse, and a 10 percent risk for alcohol dependence.

"Once you carry one of these diagnoses regularly, you tend to cut your life short by 10 to 15 years," he said.

His findings, published in the journal Lancet, are meant to guide doctors on how to spot and treat their patients for alcohol dependence disorder.

This includes a range of problem drinking behaviours such as spending too much time drinking, having trouble stopping once started, skipping important life events to drink or recover from a binge, and setting and exceeding a self-imposed limit on the number of drinks a person plans to consume.

The definition also includes more classic signs of alcohol addiction such as withdrawal.

They said repeated heavy drinking increases the risk of a temporary bout of depression by 40 percent. And 80 percent of people who are dependent on alcohol are regular smokers.

Some 40 to 60 percent of the risk of problem drinking can be explained by genes, and the rest by environmental factors, Schuckit said.

That may explain why women have a lower lifetime risk.

"This is a cultural issue. More women than men are lifelong abstainers. A higher proportion of women than men never open themselves to the possibility of alcoholism because they never or very rarely drink," Schuckit said.

He said heavy drinking raises the risk of heart disease and cancer, even in those who do not smoke.

And despite perceptions that treatments do not work, he said most patients with alcohol use disorders do well after treatment.

About 50 to 60 percent of men and women with alcohol dependence abstain or show substantial improvement in a year after treatment, which can include drugs such as Forest Laboratories Inc's Campral or acamprosate, naltrexone, also known as Revia and Depade, and disulfiramacamprosate or Antabuse.

Schuckit said these should be used in combination with therapy aimed at helping people change their behaviours.

Dave Tate is a badass. He's big. He's strong. He may be the most opinionated guy you'll ever read. And he is testosterone incarnate. I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing, but it's compelling - especially to a guy like me, who grew up afraid to offend anyone.

Courtesy of T-Nation [NOTE: title and location were changed since I posted - the link has been updated thanks to a reader who wanted to read the whole thing.]

Fuck Being Normal: An Interview with Dave Tateby Nate Green

I interviewed Dave Tate, 41-year-old businessman and world-class powerlifting expert, on January 13th. We talked, laughed, and cursed for two hours, and somehow I convinced myself that I'd done my job as a journalist, that I'd conducted a comprehensive, cohesive interview.

Then the transcript arrived. Sixty-two pages, 21,994 words. After reading through a few pages, I noticed a pattern: there was no fucking pattern.

While Dave was talking about Westside Barbell, he launched into a story about sending 75 pounds of pornography to Jim Wendler, a fellow powerlifter and his future sales manager at EliteFTS. He talked about why the 225-pound bench press test, a favorite yardstick to measure athletic talent at the NFL Combine, was "fucking stupid," then pivoted to a rant about fat guys and kindergarten. He told me his thoughts about the future of the fitness industry, said he liked my book, then went off on a tangent about tearing both pecs.

I realized my questions didn't matter. He had a lot to say, and his thoughts were uniquely interesting, funny, poignant, and inspiring. But there's no use pretending those thoughts were offered in response to any particular question I asked. We might've ended up with the same answers if I'd asked the questions in Arabic or Lithuanian. So I took out the questions, leaving you with pure, undiluted Dave.

Dave, a native of Findlay, Ohio, currently resides just outside Columbus. He's as well-known for his prolific and profane rants about whatever happens to be on his mind (if you're not easily offended, try this one) as for his powerlifting achievements. (He reached Elite status in three different weight classes, and recorded an all-time-best total of 2,205 pounds.)

He's also the author of Under the Bar and a married guy with two young sons.

With that out of the way, here's Dave.

I Became the Dude You Didn't Fuck With

I was labeled with a learning disability early on, and had to deal with all the bullshit that went with it. There were events through my childhood that made me feel basically worthless, denied, or rejected. I played football and did very well, but I hated all the fuckers I was playing with and realized I wasn't getting any respect. But I learned they'd shut up real quick and leave me alone if I just knocked them on their fucking ass all the time.

My dad dropped me off at a hardcore powerlifting gym to get in shape for football. As soon as I stepped in there I knew that I wanted to be a powerlifter. My training partners were 30-year-old men and they took me in. They pushed me. In the weight room you weren't judged on your grades, what classes you were taking, what special assistance you needed, or any of that bullshit. You were judged on your strength. It was all about what was on the bar and nothing else. In the weight room I learned that I could have control. The harder I worked, the smarter I got, the more people listened, the more I progressed.

I didn't take shit from anyone after that. People quit picking on me. They quit making fun of me because all of a sudden I became the dude you didn't fuck with. So why powerlifting? It was my solace.

I Was Standing Up There In My Underwear With Oil On and Felt Stupid

I always liked the idea of bodybuilding when I was younger. It's actually been debated that I could've done just as well at bodybuilding as I did in powerlifting because of the muscularity I had at a younger age. When I went to college [University of Toledo], I couldn't find any powerlifting guys to train with. So I started to train with the bodybuilders.

A couple of my training partners were guys who went on to win some NPC contests and compete in the Junior USA. I fell into a crowd of people who really knew what they were doing and helped guide me. I loved the training aspect of the sport, the dieting, and the discipline, but I came into it a bit messed up. I had a blocky waist and my lats weren't wide at all, which put me at a disadvantage.

We'd use either a three-day split or a four-day split. Back then we trained every body part twice per week and barely did any cardio. I also never even went through the final prep to get ready for the contest. We never did sodium loading and depletion or any of that shit. We didn't know about it.

My first competition I didn't do real well and wanted to quit. I didn't place for shit. I cheated on my diet all the time because I didn't know what to expect. I was still a teenager and placed like fifth or something. I weighed in at 242 pounds at 5-foot-10, and was around 8 percent body fat, but I just got fucking smoked by some shredded dude that was like 140 pounds. The only reason I stuck with bodybuilding after that was because my roommate called me a pussy. He said I didn't like competing because I sucked, which was mostly true.

My final show I actually won, but it just didn't feel right. I remember being up on stage when they gave me the trophy and looking out into the audience. I felt nothing. I didn't know who any of those fucking people were. Just a bunch of guys in boat-neck sweatshirts, you know?

I was standing up there in my underwear with oil on and felt stupid. I never wanted to do it again. I was actually supposed to compete in the Mr. Ohio three weeks later, and I remember my training partner came to pick me up the next day after the show to go to the gym. He found me lying near-comatose in my dorm room with fucking Haagen-Dazs and Oreos and shit everywhere. I think he realized then that I wasn't going to compete anymore.

That next week I started training for my next powerlifting meet. The bitch of it was that my 1,820 powerlifting total had dropped down to 1,620.

Under the Bar, It's All About You

It took me two years to get back to the 1,820 total. Back when I was bodybuilding I had no max-effort type of training, and my technique had totally changed. It's like I completely forgot how to bench, squat, and deadlift. But even with that it didn't matter because I was home again. I remember sitting there getting wrapped up for my first competition squat and thinking, man, this is what it's all about.

I got to test myself again. I got to ask myself some tough questions. Did my training work? Am I mentally ready? You get under the bar, it's all about you. With bodybuilding you still had to rely on the judges and how they felt that day. But with powerlifting, it's just you and the bar. There's nothing like lifting heavy shit.

You're going to be as weak as your weakest training partner

I always felt it was my responsibility and my duty to get the guy next to me stronger than I was. And all the guys who trained there felt the same. One person may have had better genetics or more mental strength, but it didn't fucking matter. What matters is that you're going to be as weak as your weakest training partner.

If you're the strongest guy in the gym then you can pretty much guarantee that you've gone as far as you're going to go. I would rather be the weakest guy in the gym and the strongest guy on the platform any day, you know? If you're the strongest dude in the gym, you need to get the fuck out and find somebody else you can train with who's going to whoop your ass. Very few people can do it by themselves.

An interesting article from Self Growth (I fixed some typos, and there is some weird-ass grammar, but otherwise this is pretty good). Try to ignore the bad writing and harvest the wisdom that is offered here.

Well, if you have made it into the 35 plus club you can testify to having travelled a journey. Most of us have probably experienced multiple jobs, have married and created the nuclear 2.3 child family. Yet what is it for the majority of males that they feel a sense of emptiness or seem like we are lacking some major gratification?

You can argue that the imminent big 40 is now fast approaching and we are yet to accomplish something in excess of our current position. Well back the truck up, you are a long time from dead. With advances in technology and medicine, chances are you're not even at the half way mark in this game we call life.

The most common trait in the typical 35+ males life is the belief of not having locked away the dream career, or more popular still, deciding if you have enough courage to step into self-employment. For those seeking independence and a truly rewarding lifestyle, this can conceivably be one of life's biggest challenges. I am often a magnet for this male demographic, who open up to this state of confusion in their life with me.

To break this down further is to explore the two biggest human motives we encounter in life, and make no mistake macho men, these two emotions are fear and love. Nearly every human driving force is derived from these two emotional factors. How you may ask?

When we are motivated by fear, and contrary to belief we use security and stability, which are outcomes of our actions, these can best be described as being in a fear based emotion. Turn the tables and be in an environment of happiness, support and caring for others, and you feel the presence of love.

So when you cannot face a life changing experience know that any excuses or objections are fuelled by fear. So why do we fear the future? Because we have had 35+ years of good or bad judgement to sway our decision making process. So when we step out of our comfort zone, our subconscious mind, or our library of historical events and experiences, throws up a red light warning us of a failed comparable time.

Psychologists have estimated that our emotive fears or worries result in 87% of concerns never coming to fruition, yet we continue to be critical of hope or a better way of life. The founder of McDonalds restaurants, Ray Kroc, was quoted as saying if you are not prepared to take a risk, then get the hell out of business. Life really is no different - we were put on this earth to encounter challenges and real problems. How boring would life be if it was that predictable you did not bother to take a chance?

Let us take a look at dreams and what they can mean and how you extract the wisdom. Take solace in finding and dedicating some quiet time for you. In today's modern world of equal rights and sharing, a lot of us are now committing more time to the household family experience than ever before.

Our fathers worked their bodies to the core and more often than not left the family chores and upbringing of kids to their wives. Today as life becomes more technically advanced we are finding new ways to look busy in our newly created free time. So back to you, work out when is your best time in the day or week for some selfish me time.

What to do with this time is ponder, meditate, or whatever takes your fancy. Then focus on what brings you alive, that feeling of "I am invincible," or when you sense that sensation of joy. For some it might be going on holidays, or taking a test drive of your dream car, or you may have an underlying passion or hobby that simply needs exploiting. You will know it by what I like to call that good gut feeling when you know you cannot fail. Once you have identified what it is for you in that feel good moment, apply that to your dedicated time of reflection.

It will be in this reflection that you will start to unearth your life purpose. Some may say I have been on a mission in search of my purpose for some time, yet I have not unearthed it. This is common and not a time to beat yourself up. Yes it can be harder to take risks when you have the responsibility of family and commitments. Though give yourself the privilege of at least acknowledging what makes you happy. Not all of us get to do what we love as a career, so allow the possibility there is scope to at least get a taste for it.

To draw the ultimate comparison is to ask yourself, "what I would do if I knew I couldn't fail?" Let these ideas flow, perhaps put pen to paper to capture these thoughts. Now most of these thoughts will not be new, there will be events, people and places where you have enjoyed that feel good experience. Another way of identifying what you need to do is relate to a time where things were falling into place and you were on a high, there will be some point in life that you can reflect upon.

We can easily expand upon the many techniques to identify where you are at in your life, and those techniques can be shared by simply visiting the author of this article, and requesting more information on unlocking your purpose. Remember you are not alone, so continue to communicate with other like minded 35 plus males that exhibit a positive mental attitude, if you attract the doom and gloom people you get just that. Rest assured life need not be difficult, it is us that makes it hard.

Make today the first day of the rest of your life.

* * *

Author's BioJason McDonald writes on metaphysics and helps people unlock their life purpose. Lyn, his wife, is a qualified professional counsellor and guides people back to good mental health. You can visit their site to find out more useful information at positivelifecounselling.com.au

This is pretty good advice, although I may be a little bit biased. I made some major changes in my life around the age of 35, completely changing direction in my career and moving to a new city. The relationship that prompted those changes did not last, but it got me out of my rut and set me on a new path that keeps evolving as time goes on.

It can be too easy to stay with what we know and not take risks, and we might take risks that don't pan out, but just being willing to do it and taking those steps can be enough to shake up our lives and get us living the life we were born to live.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

This article appeared in the Times UK the other day. I don't have a "valid" opinion on this, having never been to a spa. However, I don't like to be pampered, to get a facial or any other type of spa treatment - hell, I don't even like to get haircuts, so I do them myself (easy, since I have very short hair).

This article is actually a bit of humor piece, making fun of the masculine uneasiness with being pampered, and also taking aim at the "spa experience," from the made-for-women gowns, to the music, to the fear of public arousal.

But, the author is a bit of an expert, and he actually likes some of the places he has been.

There really is nothing wrong with a bit of self-care from time to time. I do like a good massage, as long as it's not like the one described here - "some failed hairdresser rhythmically tickles away at my flabby parts as if petting a consumptive hamster." Sounds wrong.

Why real men don't like spas

Ill-fitting gowns, whale songs and lavender candles... no wonder many men struggle with the spa experience

Simon Mills

It's the incessant, cod-monastic whispering I can't stand. “If you'd like to come through ... would you mind turning over ... is that pressure OK for you?” What? What? Speak up, woman, for heaven's sake! This is not a church; it's a treatment room. We are the only two people in the room. Nobody will complain if you adjust the volume from snooker commentator to, say, cocktail waitress, will they?

Why is it that the average spa's music system playlist is firmly stuck in the bad early-1990s, during that preposterous “new age” period after the acid-house boom but before the upscale scented candle boom? Why do we always get massaged to the bleating, aural kapok of Enya and Enigma and those ubiquitous, Peruvian sodding panpipes? Why don't they see that it's a man lying face down on the upholstered slab and give us some Elgar, Beethoven, Chopin or Ryuichi Sakamoto? Why not a selection of Bowie's instrumentals from his Low/Heroes period? Why not William Orbit or Kraftwerk? Why not the sound of newborn babies gurgling, the soporific white noise of an unattended hotel telly, or Scarlett Johansson softly reciting passages from Proust?

Then there's the overwhelming feeling of disappointment and pointlessness that comes when you get a masseur who doesn't work your soft bits hard enough. You know this from the very first touch when his/her pressure is akin to a tentative stroke of a friend's new puppy. Great, you think. Now I am going to have to lie here for the next hour, with no trousers on, basted like a Christmas turkey, bloody Enya simpering away in my ear, while some failed hairdresser rhythmically tickles away at my flabby parts as if petting a consumptive hamster.

I don't think women have this sort of trouble when they spa. (The word “spa” has become a verb, joining “summer” and “party” - dreadful). They just cruise into a pre-ordained spa sisterhood, completing a business-like introduction at reception, and changing into the provided dressing gown before wafting through into the warm womb of planet pamper beyond.

Why don't men know how to spa? Well, we feel awkward, adiposal and clumsy. We feel vaguely absurd, incongruous and, frankly, rather appalled that we have surrendered to that chink in our masculinity that is required to get us through the door of one of these establishments.

If we sign up for treatment at a mixed facility, the experience is never anything less than sweat-inducingly humiliating. The girls on the reception desk appear to be making fun of us as we fill in the health questionnaire, the throwaway sandals are at least four sizes too small, and the gown is comically short in the leg and arm. We don't have the nous to say exactly what we want because we don't want to appear overly expert in such arrant girliness.

It is almost impossible to make things pleasurable for any man who isn't a spoilt, self-serving, over-indulgent Premier League footballer. The environment is skewed towards the type of narcissism that makes most men squirm. We simply do not know the form, and to cover our arses (quite literally, in those shorty gowns), we start to act like nervy, cowed saps, doing as we are told and never asking any questions.

We certainly can't relax. If it's a massage that we are in for, we are concentrating so intently on not farting or entering a state of visible arousal that our bodies tense up like England footballers during a semi-final penalty shootout. That is bad enough if the person doing the massage is a woman. If it's a man's fingers on us, the tension is trebled.

I tell you all this drawing on some not inconsiderable experience. As a former editor of a health and fitness magazine and a former male grooming columnist for a newspaper, my reflexologised, pedicurised plates of meat have spent more time in disposable flip-flops than I would care to admit, and for a worrying period in my mid-thirties I was clocking up about three treatments a week.

Some of it was actually good fun. Some of it was even vaguely beneficial. At Champneys health spa in Tring, I spent a highly amusing afternoon in the company of Ian Wright and Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne (a physically bipolar sort who adopted the train/cane method of intensive boozing followed by intensive detoxing). Both men appeared to be living at this old-school health farm full time and sneaking glasses of dry white wine into their rooms to wash down the alfalfa sprouts and mashed yeast lunches on which they were forced to subsist. Wrighty was particular unhappy with the arrangement. “I don't really like vegetables,” he told me. Then again he also appeared to be as fit as the proverbial meat vendor's canine.

At various spas around the world I had colonic irrigation (disappointing), had my feet encased in benign ski-bootee things attached to a Heath Robinson-ish hydraulic device (why? Search me). I had my eyebrows threaded (not bad - I looked, oooh, several weeks younger) and I had lots of facials ... most of which seemed to give me spots. Two young women manipulating me, in carefully choreographed syncopation, for a four-handed “Hawaiian Wave” massage was a definite highlight, but the memory of the afternoon when I fell asleep by a deserted pool in Cologne hotel spa bed only to wake up half an hour later surrounded by naked pensioners apparently on some geriatric, naturist happy-hour deal, haunts me to this day.

What I found most frustrating about spa life was this: given that we occupy a world where lifestyles are increasingly homogenised, why hasn't the global spa fraternity come up with some form of standard operating procedure (OK - poor choice of phrase, but you know what I mean)?

Is it undercrackers on or off when a chap goes for a massage? Should we tip our therapist or will that make her feel like a zipless hooker? Are there any countries where it is acceptable to request the mythical “happy ending”?

Each spa is a law unto its pampered self. Once, for example, I had a massage in a Honolulu hotel where Polynesian spa protocol insisted that customers avoid eye contact with the masseur. Obediently, I entered the treatment room alone, lay face down with my face squashed into that padded-hole thing, while a female (I think) walked in and began to deftly drape my bare bum with a cotton throw, oil me up and begin her skilled pummelling.

When I turned over, she held the cotton sheet up above her face to protect my modesty and placed a warm mask over my eyes. After some more kneading she whispered her farewell and I heard the gentle hiss-click of the door closing. It was weird, a bit like being massaged by a pervy, faceless character from that useless Stanley Kubrick film with Tom and Nicole.

But do you know what? I loved it. This was a treatment with mystery, intrigue and an unseen hand. The hem of her crisply laundered trousers provided an astringent and gently erotic thrill. Read into this what you will, but I liked being told what to do. I liked the idea of there being rules and a strict code of behaviour.

At the beginning of Ian Fleming's Thunderball, M tells a haggard-looking 007 that he is out of shape and has to go off to a health farm - “place called Shrublands near Washington, Sussex ... Very up-to-date equipment ... even has its own herb garden.” Bond is indignant. He holds it together while he is in M's office, but when the door shuts and he is face to face with Moneypenny, the usually cool agent loses it. “I'm damned if I'm going,” he protests before threatening to give her such a spanking that she'll have to do her typing “off a block of Dunlopillo”. Mmm.

But when he gets to Shrublands, Bond rather enjoys the experience ... and you can see why. It's a slightly institutionalised, vaguely Teutonic facility with lots of girls in taut, sexy uniforms. Bond does as he is told and gets the odd “invigorating rubdown”. He is treated like somebody who wants to be rejuvenated and spruced up instead of someone who wants to smell like Coleen Rooney's knicker drawer and flounce around in a girl's housecoat.

The closest thing to a James Bond-style rubdown that I have come across recently is available at Gentlemen's Tonic, a men-only grooming spa with branches in Mayfair and at Selfridges. At reception a man in a black tunic put me at ease by talking to me about my bicycle. A nice, no- nonsense woman took me on a brief tour of the individual haircutting and wet-shave rooms. There was no robe to put on and I was told to keep my pants on. I was massaged using a tried-and-tested “Swedish” technique - no Hopi Indians or scented candles here.

Best of all, Gentlemen's Tonic is in a smart cobbled mews that is also home to the bespoke tailor Timothy Everest and, best of all, directly opposite the Guinea Grill, a nice posh boozer that is known for its award-winning steak-and-kidney pies. I am pleased to report that your male grooming hack's post-massage pie and retoxing pint went down an absolute treat.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Why Boys Fail takes a look at the efforts of some feminist groups to get a cabinet level post for women's issues. But he asks, who's looking out for men's issues?

Please, feminists, throw the boys a bone …

I counted the logos of 38 different feminist groups signing this letter asking President Obama to establish a cabinet-level Office on Women:

Dear President-Elect Obama and Vice President-Elect Biden:

As leaders of women’s organizations and advocates for women’s equality, collectively representing over 14 million women, we are writing to elaborate on the need for historic levels of women’s appointments and the need to restore and strengthen executive branch offices for women.

We applaud your initial appointments of talented women and we encourage you to further gender balance your White House, Cabinet, and executive appointments. The U.S., with women composing just 17% of the members of Congress, ranks 71st among the world’s parliaments in representation of women. With women so underrepresented in Congress, we believe it is crucialfor women’s representation to increase dramatically at the executive branch of decision-making.

Many of us will be submitting names of excellent and diverse women for your consideration. Like you, we believe that we are at a time of real change in our nation’s history. Through both words and actions, you have encouraged and challenged the nation to think transformationally.

In this spirit, we urge you to create a Cabinet-level Office on Women that will deal not only with the status of women, but with the many inequities women face in our society, our nation, and our world. Such an office is even more necessary today, because of the increased disparities and backward movement of the past eight years.

As the father of two daughters and a liberal in good standing (OK, I voted for a Republican once, but didn’t John Warner deserve it for taking on Ollie North?) I wish them the best, really I do.

Privately, I suspect feminists such as Kim Gandy from NOW would acknowledge that males could use a special assist as well — falling well behind girls in K-12 classrooms, graduating from college at embarrassingly low rates and entering a workforce where a recession is eliminating far more jobs held by men than women.

Of course men lack 38 groups to represent their needs. Actually, I can’t think of even one, which means we must throw ourselves on the mercy of the feminists. You don’t have to be a sociologist to understand what happens when one gender pulls far ahead of another (Ask Oprah; she’ll tell you about the dilemma of black women). It’s in the interest of feminists to watch out for men as well. So please, throw the boys a bone.

Seriously, I don't think either gender needs a national level person watching out for them - government has a lot more serious problems to deal with these days.

However, in an effort to redress the gender imbalances of history, I think the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Boys ARE falling behind. Men ARE lost about how to relate to each other and to women. But those things cannot be fixed by government - they are our issues, and we are the ones who need to take responsibility for redressing the wrongs.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Alltop collects the "top" sites under a variety of subjects and puts them on one page. Generally, they collect the best of each subject, although in this case they have neglected to include Masculine Heart, so it's not a complete list. (grin)

For readers of this blog, the Alltop Men site might have some useful content amid the, uh, other stuff.

The main point here is that relationship is "transformative work," meaning that it changes us both internally and externally. But it's the internal work that is so hard, that forces us to see ourselves more clearly than we may like, that requires us to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves and with the person we love.

Part of what Kurt is describing here is the challenge of relating from our Self in relationships, being Self-led as Dr. Richard Schwartz describes it in his new relationships book - You Are the One You Have Been Waiting For. When we relate from one of our "parts" - our subpersonalities - we are likely to trigger a part response in the other person. This is where things get messy.

The transformative purpose of relationship is to develop the skill of being Self-led, to come from that place of calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness (Schwartz's 8 C's). When we can do this, everything else gets easier.

The mindfulness of relationship conflict as a capacity for loving more realistically

By Kurt Barstow

January 18, 10:56 AM

A pair of penguins

For Chris

One of the perplexing things that happens in a relationship as it develops from the romantic phase (not feelings but phase) to what is described as the conflict stage (when we really begin to work out our life partnership) is that a certain kind of unified feeling is lost and we realize, in fact, that we are separate people. The relationship is going to take work, interior and exterior, and it is going to be work of a sort that one never really expected to come with the territory. There was a beautiful PBS show on couples a few years back in which one of the interviewees said marriage is not a 50-50 proposition; it's 80-80. Partly this is because we come to find that, in fact, we do not actually think and feel alike. So we must both try to feel our way compassionately into somebody else and change our own thinking and behavior. Relationship is transformative work and it isn't easy and there might even be a lot of the time where you don't get quite exactly what you want when you want it. But it is a very rich and fulfilling kind of work.

What can drive me crazy about my own relationship is the disjunction between my interior and exterior selves. I sometimes feel like there is this interior being running alongside me in my partnership that feels things more deeply, cares unselfishly, works very hard at listening to constructive criticism and tries to change based on it, thinks about my partner's best interests, and is concerned with the common good--which can sometimes mean taking the lead and sometimes mean sitting back and being led or letting be. I wish this interior self could be experienced more directly by my partner because when we get into certain patterns I feel woefully misunderstood. More frequently than I would like I manage to have the opposite effect or get across the opposite meaning of the one intended, the one that comes from the heart. And this can still be the final result even after I have explained myself at great length. I used to get really down in the dumps about this but have had to learn that I am not always going to be understood at the level of self-knowledge (a ridiculous criterion to set for someone else anyhow) and accept the fact that some percentage of misunderstanding is always going to be present simply by virtue of the fact that we are separate human beings who think differently.

Savv and Pueppi

One of my other frustrations about myself, which is directly related to feeling this discrepancy between interior and exterior, is that I am not a great verbal or emotional communicator. I tend to use words that are not necessarily as precise as they could be and I often use them idiosyncratically, which generally means my own special shading of a definition rather than the correct definition. And I am a virtual idiot when it comes to expressing emotions. My reaction to anger is to stomp off and be silent rather than have real engagement. My response to sorrow and fear is to shut everything down and try at all costs to keep calm, which means I express these things in an intellectualized drone that cannot be understood as emotional. So from the point of view of my partner, it's no wonder I can be misunderstood. He is verbally acute and quite the opposite in expressing his emotions, more Mediterranean in style. And I know full well that he sometimes has similar feelings of being misunderstood or even neglected in some ways. And even after he has expressed these misunderstandings, they may still partly inform my feelings and reactions. My own difficulty makes e sympathetic to his. We also have to recognize that we are often actually consistent in our inconsistency. Our strengths are also our weaknesses. Therefore, our likes and dislikes in a partner can often revolve around the same qualities or capacities. Good nature can become a tiresome viewpoint that is naive and always seeks to correct the other when he is being critical (or perceptive) about other people. Taking on the big picture can mean one isn't always attentive to details. Tenaciousness and hard work can become uncontrolled or overbearing. Prudence can sometimes be construed as not taking one's emotional needs into account. And the stylish flair and sociability of someone more actively engaged in the outer world can leave you feeling ignored. But in the end, the most important thing is that the other be accepted as a complete human being.

Rilke says that to love another human being is "our most difficult task." In his book How to be an Adult In Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving (Shambhala, 2002), David Richo says of the conflict phase of relationships, "Cooperation--partnership--is the heart of conflict resolution. We are not working individually for ascendency of our own position. We work together for the health and happiness of the relationship. As in Eastern martial arts, harmonious movements take the place of adversarial struggle. This nonresistant, nondominant, nonpassive, nonviolent love arises from unconditional disarmament and thus has no place for 'I am good, you are bad' or 'I am right, you are wrong.' If we get caught up in such dualism, we project the face of the opponent onto our partner, and both of us have already lost." The starting point for this article was two thoughts by Jon Kabat-Zinn in his book on mindfulness and meditation, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness (Hyperion, 2005) that struck me as being particularly useful about relationships. The first is about creating problems and the second about being right and wrong. I'll finish by quoting them at length.

From the poster "Two Mules: A Fable for the Nations"

ON CREATING PROBLEMS: "You make problem, you have problem. You make insult, you have insult. You make interpretation, you have interpretation. There are infinite opportunities for us to get stuck in fabrication, for us to latch onto some event or other and make it into something, something much more than it really is. This is the origin of a huge amount of grief and mania. If we make something out of our perceptions, some big story, such as 'they' don't love me, or 'they' don't respect me, or 'things are not supposed to have happened like this,' or 'my body is no good,' or 'my life is a failure,' or 'I'm ing of the world," the very model of a modern major general, or movie star, or whatever it is for you, rather than seeing the essential emptiness/fulness of events and resting in our hearts in acceptance and equanimity, in the integrity of spacious, openhearted, choiceless awareness, we might be right, or we might be wrong, we might be requited, or we might not ever be, but we will never know peace, and we will never see the big picture, beyond the stories, big and little, we are telling ourselves and then forgetting that we made up, fabricated, all by ourselves."

ON BEING RIGHT AND WRONG:"If we start paying attention in this way, we may find that this [demonizing, stereotyping, making sweeping generalizations about people] can happen even with the people we live with and love the most. That is why family is usually such a wonderful laboratory for honing greater awareness, compassion, and wisdom, and actually embodying them in our everyday lives. For when we find ourselves clinging strongly to the certainty that we are right and others are wrong, even if it is true to a large degree and the stakes are very, very high (or at least we think they are and are attached to our view of it), then our very lenses of perception can become distorted, and we risk falling into delusion and doing some degree of violence to what is and to the truth of things and of the relationships we are in, far beyond the "objective" validity of one position or another. When I examine my own mind, I have to recognize that I am subject to all those tendencies every day, and have to watch out for them to not become deluded, and I imagine I am not unique in that regard."

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

There has recently been considerable buzz about polyamory around the Web, mostly because Steve Pavlina, the uber blogger of personal development, has decided that he wants to pursue a polyamorous lifestyle, with his wife's approval (participation?) I should add. [See here, here, here, and here for just a few of his posts explaining and rationalizing his choice. If you follow the link above to his blog, you can read all the posts.] In case you don't know:

Polyamory (from Greekπολυ [poly, meaning many or several] and Latinamor [literally “love”]) is the desire, practice, or acceptance of having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

Normally, I wouldn't care at all what someone does with his or her life. But Pavlina is different - he has a wide audience of people who take his positions very seriously. In this sense, his choice then is open to discussion and criticism, especially because he has been so vocal on his blog in justifying his desire for this "different" form of relationship. He has so far seemingly dismissed criticism as coming from those who suffer from Remote Diagnosis Disorder, with the injunction to Judge Not.

Because generally it tends to be men who argue for and want a polyamorous relationship (although not exclusively), I have decided to post this here rather than at IOC. Immature masculinity wants sex and other forms of intimacy without restrictions, so this seems like a good place to have this discussion - and I am sure this only the opening salvo.

I have a lot of opinions on this topic, but rather than spout my own thoughts, I want to present an integral vision of the stages of intimate relationship, as outlined by the master thinker in this area, Robert Augustus Masters. The following essay on immature and mature monogamy comes from Newsletter #15, July 2006.

IMMATURE AND MATURE MONOGAMY: A PRELIMINARY LOOK

Monogamy is not doing so well these days, and was probably not doing any better in earlier times, regardless of lower (or even nonexistent) divorce rates and other appearances to the contrary. Most longtime monogamous couples have remained together more for reasons of security and comfort than real intimacy. Many couples haven’t had sex with each other (or, usually, with anyone else) for a long time (and we’re talking years), and many of those who are still having sex with each other aren’t enjoying it very much. And it’s not just sex that’s gone stale or flat, but the very bond itself, which could probably be more accurately described as bondage.

Monogamy, with few exceptions, seems to be little more than a cult of two, mired in a mutual pact to not rock the boat, trying to find some pleasure amidst stagnant waters. A mirage of intimacy, greened by oases of distraction. Quite understandably, various alternatives to monogamy have found a receptive audience (and I’m talking about contemporary culture — plenty of older cultures have been characterized by forms of relationship other than monogamy).

So is monogamy on its way out? No, and not just because it’s so culturally entrenched, and still held up by most as the best way to form a lasting love partnership. What needs to go — and what is at last ready to go — is not monogamy, but monogamy as it usually practiced. In what follows, I’ll clarify this by comparing such monogamy with what it could be. To further flesh out this discussion, I’ll also bring in polyamory (relationship with more than one partner at a time), because of its connection, however shadowed, with everyday monogamy.

If we were to put monogamy up against polyamory, with regard to depth, awakening potential, and capacity for intimacy, which would come out on top? Monogamy, by a landslide, so long as we’re talking about mature monogamy, as opposed to conventional (or growth-stunting and passion-dulling) monogamy, referred to from now on as immature monogamy.

Immature monogamy is, especially in men, often infected with promiscuous desire and fantasy, however much that might be repressed or camouflaged with upstanding virtues. Airbrush this, infuse it with talk of integrity and unconditional love and jealously-transcending ethics, consider bringing in another partner or two, and you’re closer than near to polyamorous or multiplepartnering territory.

At this point, those who promote multiple-partnering might jump in and say that it is not immature monogamy, because of how loving and open it is. Though there may in some cases be some truth in this, it glosses over the difficulties associated with such “love” and “openness”. One such difficulty is the restriction that multiple-partnering (or so-called “open relationship”) places on attachment, coupled with its denial that it is doing so. If we have more than one lover, then when things get rocky or flat with one, we can go to another, instead of staying with and working with that rockiness or flatness; we can, in other words, keep ourselves removed from getting as attached as we might if we were with only one deep intimate. Another difficulty has to do with the fuzzy or easily-collapsed boundaries that often accompany the enthused “openness” of “open” relationships (this of course also often characterizes immature monogamy), through which the eroticizing of unresolved issues (like craving being wanted) is confused with sexual freedom.

Immature monogamy gets neurotically attached, multiple-partnering avoids (and is a distraction from) attachment, and mature monogamy permits attachment, without making a problem out of it. And what’s so important about attachment in intimate relationship? Well, for starters, without it we are not nearly vulnerable enough in our relationships; it’s easy to be loving but not vulnerable, but without sufficient vulnerability, we won’t open — and be broken open — to the depths of relational intimacy of which we are capable. I’ll say more about the value of attachment in intimate relationship a bit later.

Those who are caught up in — or dragged down by — immature monogamy are going to want some compensation for their doing time in the cult of two that is immature monogamy, and high on that list, especially for men, is erotic pleasure. If they are not sexually happy with their wives, which is very often the case, then they’re probably going to end up hanging out with or acting out their pornographic leanings, which may include polyamorous fantasies. They have not yet learned that eroticism (excessive interest in sexual promise and opportunity) promises happiness, but real sex begins with happiness.

Men in general are not naturally monogamous (at least compared to women), and most of the time feel as though they are losing something — usually their “freedom” — through entering monogamous relationship. Conjugal entrapment, feebly saluted by those who, having already done plenty of time there, are still “tied down” — no wonder there are so many jokes about marriage’s power to emasculate! It’s no accident that sexy husbands who have eyes only for their wives are all but an extinct species in television and film. Monogamy simply won’t work for men (or for women) until they move toward its mature form. How? By waking up and committing themselves to waking up, especially when in the midst of immature monogamy’s neurotic rituals and compensatory erotic fantasies.

Immature monogamy is not entirely useless, because time spent in it can — through the sheer dissatisfaction and disappointment that it generates — ready us for something deeper and far more fulfilling that still is monogamous. Mature monogamy is a life-giving, passion-deepening, spiritually-opening choice, and it’s a choice we cannot truly make until we’ve become incapable of immature monogamy and unseducible by multiple-partnering’s advances. At this point, we can love so deeply and so fully in a one-on-one relationship that we can become profoundly attached, so that if our beloved were to suddenly die or betray us, our heart would be ripped wide open. Consciously opening ourselves to such attachment means that we are not going to run away or dissociate from whatever pain our relationship might bring us. Here, we are not repressing our multiple-partnering urges, but have outgrown them, leaving ourselves no escape routes (like another lover or some other potent distraction) from our chosen relationship.

Mature monogamy is all about finding freedom through intimacy, especially the profound and singular intimacy that characterizes a truly bonded partnership. Our relationship with our beloved is then a sacred container which we are deeply committed to caring for and protecting. This means, among other things, not leaking energy elsewhere (e.g., through flirting or fantasizing about others), not distracting ourselves from challenges and difficulties in the relationship, not indulging in reactivity, and not putting any limit on our love for our beloved.

Such deep focus, such devotion to our shared depth, such shared safety to get really vulnerable and really alive with each other, such shared emotional and existential and spiritual nakedness, is an ongoing choice made all the richer by cutting off all exits. Then she is not just a woman to him, but all women and Woman Incarnate, and he is to her not just a man, but all men, and Man Incarnate. This is not metaphysical mush, but a living reality, full-blooded and more often than not ecstatic.

Having said all this, I’m not condemning multiple-partnering, but simply attempting to place it in a relational context that divests it of any glamor with which we might want to associate it. Multiple-partnering confuses love and sexuality; yes, we can love more than one person deeply, but this does not mean that we can or need to be sexual with them! Putting a limit on whom we are sexual with does not necessarily put a limit on whom we are loving deeply. Those committed to mature monogamy find freedom through limitation.

Those who have not yet entered mature monogamy are going to be, however subtly, chronically on the verge of betraying their partner (and not just sexually). In the sexuality of immature monogamy, fantasy usually plays a big role, allowing us to pump energy into mindgames that make pleasurable sensation and release more important than true intimacy. Erotic consolation. But in the sexuality of mature monogamy, fantasy is all but nonexistent (being utterly unnecessary), since the living reality and succulent mystery of each other is more than enough to keep both joyously and effortlessly turned on, especially given the remarkably deep shared trust that is present. Such trust is rooted in the dynamic safety and integrity inherent to mature monogamy; it is a safe place to let go of playing it safe, inviting us into the adventure of awakening through relationship.

Immature monogamy may be an avoidance of overt multiple-partnering, but multiple-partnering is an avoidance of (or detouring away from) mature monogamy. Put another way, immature monogamy and multiple-partnering are two aspects of a stage of relatedness that must be outgrown and outdanced before mature monogamy can take the stage.

One more thing about mature monogamy: It makes possible the kind of relationship that transcends relationship. Touching the One through the two. Freedom through intimacy. Mature monogamy is, in other words, a liberating bondage, a deeply joined freefall into What-Really-Matters. Multiple-partnering is too wrapped up in the shallow end of the pool to generate the depth possible through mature monogamy.

In mature monogamy, there is not room for another lover, but more than enough room for the Beloved.

Regarding immature monogamy and the territory between it and mature monogamy: Jump in, wherever you are. When you hit bottom, push off and surface, then paddle out a bit deeper. Eventually, you will leave the arms of the familiar, and have no bottom to hit, no end to love, no limit to depth. This is the beginning of mature monogamy. What joy, what a blessing, what an all-round wonder and gift, it is to fully participate in awakened, full-blooded monogamy!

Masters offers a compelling stage model of relationships (and obviously no one model fits every person). Because he is an integral thinker, intimacy group leader, and individual & couples therapist, he has a lot of experience with how people function (or don't) in intimate relationships. For me, that lends much more credence to his thinking than those who advocate for polyamory on the Web, generally in defense of their own choices.

Here are Masters's four stages of relationship. For more info on this model, I refer interested readers to the book cited above.

The first stage is me-centered relationship. This is an ago-run arrangement, with the egoity of one partner usually dominating that of the other. Each partner's credo, however well camouflaged, basically is: "What's in it for me?" Some more appear to be more selfish, more full of themselves, but others, perhaps nicer or more passive, are still obeying - however indirectly - a what's-in-it-for-me dynamic, if only to reinforce their security.

Essentially, this style of relationship offers little intimacy for either party. There may be elevated state experiences of bonding, closeness, or love, but they are simply transitory states, not sustained experiences (this is true of all non-being-centered stages). This is an immature form of monogamy, one that is held in place by fear and obedience (with the man usually holding the power). Relationship betrayal is common.

The next stage is we-centered codependent relationship. It is not without me-centered tendencies - for each stage not only transcends the previous stage, but also includes it, however peripherally or slightly - but is not so readily run by them. Here, equality is not only valued, but often is overvalued, so that differences tend to get flattened or drained of life. The couple is now not so much two cults of one in coalition, as one cult of two over against the rest of life.

This is what David Schnarch often calls the "fusion" stage of relationship. There is little sense of self outside the relationship, and the couple defines themselves almost exclusively by the relationship.

Monogamy at this stage is also immature, held in place by a power dynamic rooted in exaggerated or force-fed tolerance (generally shared equally by both partners). Non-monogamous urges are generally curbed, muted, or repressed, at best being only vicariously indulged.

The only real betrayal in this form of relationship is of each person's autonomous self in service of the relationship.

The third stage is we-centered coindependent relationship. Here, both partners make a priority out of maintaining their individuality, while also remaining, at least to minor degree, a cult of two. Negotiation over differences is still commonplace, but there are more interpersonal risks taken. Tolerance is not so rigidly enforced. Autonomy, though much more adult here than in me-centered relationships, is often given too much weight. There usually is insufficient vulnerability between the partners. And though there is more passion here than in we-centered codependent relationship, it is not usually permitted full expression. Promiscuous urges are usually neither indulged (as in the first stage) nor suppressed (as in the second stage), but rather are exposed and discussed in a way that mostly does not significantly threaten the relationship.

Monogamy here is starting to shed its immaturity; there is some sense of a deeper kind of relationship, with some steps toward that perhaps being taken.

The failure here is the overattachment to autonomy and an aversion to deeper forms of communion (often confused with fusion). In my experience, this is the dominant form of relationship in this country at our point in history (though I might be a little optimistic in this assessment).

The fourth stage is being-centered relationship. Although it knows itself to be above/beyond the previous three stages, it does not look down upon them (doing so would be a first-stage habit), and does not even want to, for it chooses intimacy with all its qualities, however dark or immature or unappealing, and it recognizes that all of the qualities that characterize early stages of relational intimacy are, to whatever degree, part of it. Rather than just transcending these qualities, being-centered relationship also cultivates intimacy with them, so that they are not only included in it, but also are known from the deep inside. (Thus do we relate not from our neuroses, but rather to them.)

Monogamy at this stage is mature, possessing an integrity that's firmly rooted in shared love, shred power, shared depth, shared presence. Non-monogamous urges present no problem, because they have all but ceased to exist; there is simply no interest in them (at the same time, however, there is great, ever-deepening passion).

At this stage we find freedom through intimacy - there is no other alternative. As Masters says, "the limitations of monogamy are not entrapping, but liberating."

In the newsletter excerpt above, which is taken from Chapter One of his book, Masters defined polyamory as immature monogamy. I tend to agree with this if we look at mature monogamy as a being-centered form of relationship.

In this model, intimacy is the path we take to higher stages of being. We can unearth a lifetime's worth of lessons, wounds, and growth opportunities through this open and vulnerable form of relationship. This is not to say we do not need other relationships, but those we enter will not rival the depth of the primary relationship because we respect the boundaries and openness of that primary relationship.

Mature monogamy is not just highly exclusive —in narrowing its primary focus to just one other — but is simultaneously highly inclusive, in its deliberate intimacy with all of the qualities of both partners, through which intimacy with the qualities of everyone is cultivated.

That is, all qualities are felt and known through mature monogamy’s radical intimacy. Then not only is the One touched through the two, but the many also.

Mature monogamy’s inclusivity is inseparable from its capacity to embody a greater depth than that which it is including. Its inclusion — an embracing at once expansive, illuminating, and discerning — of the various qualities that characterize both partners goes far beyond mere tolerance or indiscriminate acceptance, and its awareness of these qualities goes far beyond mere witnessing or observation.

And why? Because of the intimate, down-to-earth coexistence of its inclusivity and its awaring.

Mature monogamy’s inclusivity, which is as deep and wide as it is compassionate, keeps its awaring from getting stranded in transpersonal wastelands and cosmic clearcuts (as when there’s an overemphasis on the impersonal nature of reality); and its awaring, which aims for self-illuminating attentional continuity rather than the promised lands of Enlightenment, keeps its inclusivity from getting lost in or swamped by life’s inevitable dramatics.

In neither separating from our differences, nor in getting so close to them that we lose sight of them, we enter the homeland of real intimacy, which is perhaps most deeply lived relationally through the practice of mature monogamy. In mature monogamy, waking up in the midst of arising reactivity does not mean rising above or otherwise avoiding it, but rather being fully present with it in the presence of our partner, until it’s no longer an it, but only reclaimed us.

This involves some resolute focus, coupled with a panoramic sense of the various factors at play. That is, it is an awaring deliberately intimate with its objects, even as they become transparent to the point of no longer being objects in any conventional sense. The deeper we journey into mature monogamy, the more that awareness and inclusivity become one. This constitutes the essential spirituality of mature monogamy (and maturity in general): love and and awareness functioning as one.

Mature monogamy’s emphasis on letting everything — everything — serve its participants’ awakening makes it a practice-path of great power; nothing is avoided and everything is kept in ego-transcending perspective, with radical intimacy being the context that contains and holds it all. In such intimacy, connection-with and separation-from — which are both essential developmental processes — come together, joining forces.

Probably the most illuminating and liberating place to practice relational intimacy is in the shared depths — the multidimensional crucible — of mature monogamy. Yes, there are other places offering opportunities for deep intimacy, but none provide mature monogamy’s peer bond of shared mutuality and experiential possibilities. This is not to devalue other forms of intimacy, but to place them in proper perspective. A mother and her baby, for example, can share a remarkable intimacy, but there is little challenge in it — no ego transcendence (since the baby doesn’t yet have an ego to transcend), no cocreated articulation of what’s happening, no co-journeying through each other’s conditioning, no shared appreciation of each other’s struggles and mortality, no shared responsibilities to take care of together.

Mature monogamy’s inclusivity is not an indiscriminate throwing open of the borders. It excludes the acting-out of practices that undermine it, such as behaviors, erotic and otherwise, that distract us from our suffering. This means a no that makes possible a deeper yes. Though it may look like repression, it is but healthy renunciation, a wisely informed setting of boundaries that makes possible a deeper freedom.

Immature monogamy fantasizes about being elsewhere, even as it beats itself up for doing so; mature monogamy is too passionately and stably here to even consider being elsewhere, finding through its mutual openings an everdeepening intimacy with the Mystery that is the ground, sky, and all of all that is. The Beloved behind the beloved.

In the radically liberating bondage of mature monogamy, we develop a relationship that cannot but help but be of benefit to all. Such relationship excludes in order to include; only two are in it, but through their bond, a presence, a shared wholeness, an ease of love, is radiated that motivelessly touches and includes all.